


how to love the hurricane

by tothemoon



Series: ad astra [6]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Growing Up Together, M/M, Magical Realism, Slice of Life, Weather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 11:04:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7637620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothemoon/pseuds/tothemoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Oikawa Tooru casually controls the weather systems in Miyagi and Iwaizumi doesn't blink an eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how to love the hurricane

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arteriole](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arteriole/gifts).



> hello pal i meant to post this a few days ago but never had a chance to finish! hope you enjoy!!

 

 

In this instance, no one is the sun.

They are two boys, neither shining, neither dark, at an age where shadows never cast themselves too far or large. 

Iwaizumi meets the new neighbor boy, also five, at the top of the stone steps separating their houses, and introduces himself as such: “I live right across from you,” he says, but it doesn't seem to do anything but cause ire. The other boy only turns his head, pushes up a pair of his father’s sunglasses up his nose, and goes on ignoring Iwaizumi. He's clearly crying, but bent on hiding it. Iwaizumi spots the wobbly line of a miserable mouth either way.

Under the sun, it rains all strange, and they do not speak the first time they meet. It is only later, when Iwaizumi’s mother tells him of the most peculiar boy in the next house. “Tooru-kun decides the weather sometimes,” she says, and Iwaizumi frowns at the reverence in her tone.

“Oh.” Iwaizumi slips on his shoes, stares out at the sun, and feels the rain on his face. We wonders if this will be a friendship worth noting.

(Or one to begin with at all.)

  


 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  


 

 

 

 

 

The next few times they meet, Oikawa kicks up winds at seventy-five kilometers per hour, but that's not even the exciting part, because _Oikawa Tooru has never tried milk bread_ , and that itself might be a natural disaster. Iwaizumi breaks off a piece his mother’s packed for him today, certainly not threatened by any high force winds, and watches Oikawa gush at the taste of it. 

That's when he first calls him the name, louder than anything he's let himself mumble this whole summer.

 _“Iwa-chan,”_ he says, like he just can't help it, and the sound of it is almost lost under howling winds. Iwaizumi thinks to correct him, because no one’s _ever_ called him that, and it'd be a shame to let him start.

(Iwaizumi does no such thing though, when he feels the gales die down around him. At peace with a new town, a new house, and a new friend to call his own, Oikawa Tooru breathes a breeze all easy.)

  
  


 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


 

 

 

Iwaizumi just hopes the name doesn't stick.

 

(It's just that, _well_. It does.)

  
  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  


 

 

“Iwa-chan!”

Sometimes, nothing happens. Iwaizumi likes those days most, especially in the summer when they’ve nothing but sun on their faces and a whole field to play in. Oikawa’s latest fascinations have been with a volleyball he’s found at the playground this afternoon, and they’ve decided to give the game a try.

“We suck at this,” Iwaizumi declares, out of breath. After about two hours of chasing after the ball, he wonders if they should just stick to catching beetles. Oikawa does not budge. He takes the ball into his hands, frown stuck on his face; overhead, the last of the day’s sun beats on, too stubborn to set. 

It is with a sigh, that Iwaizumi presses his arms together for the receive.

It is with a smile, that Oikawa serves cleanly for the first time. 

And it is later that night when neighbors remark on this year’s summer solstice. “That felt longer than usual, didn't it?” they ask. “Glad it's the end.”

From his terrace, Iwaizumi breathes in the night, ready for morning to come again. He glances over at Oikawa’s bedroom window, a pocket of light in the dark, and pretends to live in its perpetual day.

  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


 

 

Their tenure at Kitagawa Daiichi middle school starts with a storm of Oikawa’s making, a heavy rain on their first morning before class. Under an umbrella too small for them to both share, Iwaizumi attempts to, anyway, when he feels the downpour soak the both of them down to their shoes. Rain without warning in Miyagi always took a bit of deciphering, severity of storm dependent on sentiment. Light rain, for whenever Oikawa has mild digestive problems. _Mild_ rain, for sad movie endings. Downpours came for a plethora of reasons, like bad test grades, or an older brother finally moving out, or a goldfish, suddenly passing away; but it wasn't hard to figure out today’s reason for rain (even if Iwaizumi wished he'd save it for another time). 

“You know,” he starts, neither angry, or amused, exactly. “You don't need to worry. You're a shoo in for the team.”

Oikawa pulls at a stiff gakuran collar, all winces at every _drip_ and _drop_. In defiance, he avoids looking back at Iwaizumi. “The plants might thank me for this. We haven't had much rain lately.” 

“So you have been nervous about things,” says Iwaizumi.

The wind kicks up before settling into nothing. Oikawa shrugs. “I'll be over it soon,” he says. “Sun before twelve. How about that for a promise?”

Iwaizumi can only scoff, a note of a nonbeliever. “Like you can control any of this,” he says back, and Oikawa just smiles. “But it's all right. No matter how bad the rain is, you better believe I'll get your ass into the gym to try out later.” 

Iwaizumi looks up, past the red vinyl of an umbrella dome, past the low-hanging trees, past the looming clouds. Even with no blue in sight, he does not fret. Oikawa only walks faster in turn, never meant to find shelter for too long, and trounces past any puddles like warfare. In hidden motions, Oikawa smiles back, and Iwaizumi stays back to observe some natural phenomenon.

 _Kitagawa Daiichi will never see him coming,_ Iwaizumi thinks. He catches up to Oikawa before he gets too far up the road.

(Steps made and sped, he thinks to neglect the rain Oikawa makes.)

  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  


 

 

 

In fact, Oikawa doesn't stop the storm by twelve. He doesn't stop it at all, but it's no matter, because they make it to that first practice soaked through and _late_ but ready to go. They stand at the door together, wringing their track jackets of rain and suffering in their shoes. Heads keep high without wavering. 

“My name is Oikawa Tooru,” comes the call, and Iwaizumi hears it echo across the court. The upperclassmen take notice. The coaches scribble things down on their clipboards, and for a moment, it feels like the world has stopped for judgment day. 

They both take their first steps, anyway. Thunder rumbles the entire prefecture, and neither of them look back. In a _tch,_ one third-year complains that the forecast never called for _thunderstorms._ In another, Iwaizumi tries not to call this all pride.

Oikawa once said this happened whenever he was hungry. _Pangs,_ he'd called it, because thunder had a funny way of sounding like an empty stomach. It was a ridiculous notion at the time, because they'd been nothing but kids under a pillow fort with the ball between them. 

 _‘Hunger? Why don't you go eat something, then?’_ Iwaizumi remembers asking, _‘Instead of making storms?’_  

 _‘But don't you see it, Iwa-chan?’_ Oikawa had just smiled back.

_‘No. Maybe?’_

_‘It's not the type food can fix.’_

Iwaizumi breathes in, comes to a sort of understanding, and clenches his fists tight.

“My name is Iwaizumi Hajime,” he bellows, “and I've come to play here, too!”

  


 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  


 

 

 

 

The weather rings mild for the next two years. Summer, fall, winter, spring—the two of them grow by it, some seasons more, and some seasons less, and Iwaizumi thinks they'll never see bad weather again. Oikawa’s grown into his role as principal setter for the team, fingers light with every toss, Iwaizumi, his sturdy ace. He likes the way the word sounds, sharp and solid on his tongue, and thinks to keep it for the long run. 

 _It's wishful thinking,_ he supposes, right at the start of their third and final year at Kitagawa Daiichi. He knows this by the sky. Blue reigns above them in some forced smile, more cloudy than not. It's hotter than usual for this time of year for sure, too, and Oikawa speaks in biting tones. “ _Damn that Ushiwaka,”_ he says, because they've spent the past two years losing to him and his school down the way, _“and damn every prodigy that steps on this court,”_ because that's what Ushiwaka was, and Oikawa sure hasn't forgotten.

 _Wishful thinking,_ Iwaizumi knows for sure, when _he_ sets foot on the court for a first practice and a name ready to burst at the seams, dark hair trimmed in short and stern bangs. Eyes go wide like the color of cloud cover.

“My name is Kageyama Tobio,” the new boy says. He’s a setter, too. The crowd whispers something about having a _prodigy_ in their midst, and Oikawa says nothing about it. Smile thin across his face, he only regards his new kouhai with the barest civility; insistent on practicing his jump serves instead, he whispers an amount, _“two hundred,”_ like that'll show all the challengers in their midst.

Iwaizumi tries not to wince at the number. He walks home alone that night, for what feels like the first time in forever, steps heavier than he'd like to admit.

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


 

 

 

“It's been awfully humid, don’t you think?”

“Are you blaming Oikawa for that?” Iwaizumi asks his mother back, waiting for the table fan to spin towards him on the kitchen table.

“Oh, _never_ ,” she tells him right back, “because I know how you teenage boys operate. He's probably just holding something bad in. That's why it's been so muggy.” She goes to tend to the plants in the flower box in the window, willing them not to droop. “He'll come around, though.”

Iwaizumi hopes so. Outside, the morning hangs hazy and clouded, too heavy to run. _Restless weather_ , he supposes: a heat like this made it impossible to go back to sleep, but too hard to run too far, as well. He huffs out a breath, looks towards the untied shoes next to his duffle bag; he shrugs off the fight he had with Oikawa the previous morning about _just that—_ about running too far ahead, soles worn and hot—and seeks to focus on breakfast, instead.

His mother, ever the clairvoyant about such things, only smiles at her son.

“He'll come around,” she says with familiarity, not reverence. “High humidity makes great rain.”

Iwaizumi’s not sure what she means by that, but plasters the grin back on for her, anyway.

Vague thuds echo past the house, insistent down the stone steps. _Oikawa’s going on a morning run again,_ Iwaizumi knows. He thinks to let him pass, this time.

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  


 

 

 

The next time, he doesn't. The same night Iwaizumi catches Oikawa from striking Kageyama Tobio square across the face, the humidity hits irrepressible highs, too stubborn to concede. The local forecast has called for a one-hundred percent chance of rain, with no downpour in sight.

Iwaizumi grabs a fistful of Oikawa’s collar, all leniency lost, and tells him—of _six,_ not _one,_ on the court; the futility of _going at it alone_ or against any one person; the futility of going against any uncertain self— 

Iwaizumi lays it all on him, harder than he's ever had before, and wonders if this is what caring might be. He _knows_ it is, when he waits for Oikawa to fight him on all of this again. _Because I'll just have to stay here until you get it,_ he decides, for better or worse and everything in between.

He knows it is a matter of caring, when the sound of rain only brings relief.

He knows it, when he hears Oikawa’s laugh all light in the downpour. The door hinges back from the gust, and the lights go out from the storm.

In the darkness, Oikawa says it, past all prodigies and propensity to never make a rain so clean.

“Suddenly, I feel invincible,” comes his words, barely heard like he's never let himself come to the conclusion before. Because truth has a tendency to appear in reluctant bloom or blackout sometimes, and Iwaizumi should've known it might always take a little time.

 _Invincible,_ he sounds out. It rings as ridiculous as he’d expected.

But past the storms Oikawa’s ever made and withheld, it is the first time Iwaizumi’s inclined to call it so, too. It is with a firm hand that he helps Oikawa up, ready for the walk home and all roads ahead.

  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

Iwaizumi’s mother cracks open a window the next morning, a sigh of relief for cooler conditions. 

“Wonderful,” she remarks, shelving the table fan until next time. “I trust that Oikawa-kun’s feeling better, then?”

Iwaizumi mulls over the last of his breakfast. “For now,” he corrects with a smile, “because _brats_ don't stray too far from trouble.” His mother laughs, and Iwaizumi wonders if he'll have to chase after Oikawa on his daily run this morning. He thinks of his usual warnings: _don't sprint too hard on that knee! Slow down when you're crossing the street! We’ve got high schools looking at us!_

In turn, Oikawa comes to his door without the need for either. Dressed to the nines in his school uniform, hands in his pockets all settled, he remarks on the miraculous weather this morning and suggests they walk to welcome it.

And walk, they’ll do, at least for today. Iwaizumi’s mother thanks Oikawa for the good weather, and they set off along the path. 

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa calls when they're alone, and Iwaizumi can't help but perk up at the syllables. In a language usually only translated through high noon suns and wind currents, he’s learned to decode Oikawa through breaks in his voice and dressed up words. _Iwa-chan_ was not just _Iwa-chan_. In fact, the sound of it might mean a million things: _I'm sorry, I won't do that again,_ and _let’s keep going_.

This time, Iwaizumi thinks to count it as all three. Oikawa says nothing more about it, walks past Iwaizumi on the pavement, and stirs up a gust between them.

(But through it, Iwaizumi finds him on the other side anyway. In a language of his own, he runs the hand along Oikawa’s shoulder, keeps at his side, and tells him without saying: _don't apologize, I know you won't,_ and _yes—_ )

( _Yes_.)

( _Let's keep going._ )

  
  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


(Always, always, always.)

  
  
  
  


 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  


 

The years pass again, as they tend to. They trade in stiff gakuran jackets for _Seijou_ blazers, and jump a little higher when they serve. Oikawa grows another few centimeters, Iwaizumi even fewer; at this, he pretends not to notice. 

Other than that, it's all the same: the walk to school in the morning, volleyball practice, the walk home in the evening—they come to a certain peace in the rhythm of it, and Iwaizumi breathes in the weather Oikawa makes. Today, it's cool with a spot of clouds, appropriate for autumn. The sun hangs on for the end of the day, not too bright or bold, but golden all the same. Hazy. Oikawa smiles in it, almost hidden by a turned cheek.

Iwaizumi pretends not to shiver under his scarf. “So,” he starts, “you seem happy today.”

“Hm?” Oikawa blinks back. “And what makes you think that, Iwa-chan?”

“I don't know,” Iwaizumi says. “That awful look on your face, for one.” He tries to catch a sunbeam in his hands. Oikawa laughs back in watching him.

“Well, for your information,” Oikawa answers, “I did have a good day. My knee didn't ache, Makki bought me a juice box at lunch...I mean, what else could I really ask for?”

Oikawa looks on ahead, a sigh enough to rustle the trees. “That's not it, then,” Iwaizumi corrects himself. “Not _happy_ , exactly.”

“Oh? Then, what?”

Iwaizumi thinks about this for a moment.

“Relieved,” he says. “You're relieved about something.”

They stop on the path home. Today’s route has been a meandering one, past convenience stores for ice cream, parks for _people-watching._ On the edge of sundown, Iwaizumi makes out the sight of him; _Oikawa Tooru,_ maker of storms, clear skies, and everything in between; _Oikawa Tooru,_ to-be captain of the Aoba Johsai volleyball team; _Oikawa Tooru,_ neighbor and best friend and the kid with the sun on his face. Iwaizumi winces at the glimmer between leaves, those gaps of light like loose kaleidoscope pieces, the one caught on Oikawa’s face. Briefly, he wonders what it'd be like to wipe it away, like a dirt smudge from his cheek. He doesn't— _definitely_ not—when he feels the faint flicker of his hand, too close to the unfurl.

In turn, Oikawa lifts his head up, as easy as he'll ever permit.

“I think I _am_ relieved,” he tells Iwaizumi. 

“I see. And why’s that?” 

Oikawa smiles, not particularly bothered.“Mayu-chan broke up with me today.”

“Why would that be something to be happy about?”

“It was the way it happened,” Oikawa tells him. “I told her an unpleasant thing.”

Iwaizumi shakes his head, already aghast. “ _What_? Did you insult her?”

“No!” 

“Then?”

Oikawa guides the clouds over the last of the sun. _He's been getting good at that_ , Iwaizumi thinks. 

“Just something I didn't even realize I needed to say,” Oikawa tells him. “So maybe that's why I'm relieved.”

Walking on, he does not lift the clouds. The wind lives on. Cooler than ever, Iwaizumi refuses to tremble in it. 

“What did you tell her, then?” he asks. 

Oikawa opens his mouth for a moment before mashing it closed. “Well,” he starts, keeping small, “there's a reason I called it unpleasant. I don't want to trouble you.”

It is then when Iwaizumi feels the strange urge to say it: _I want you to trouble me._ Hands unfurl at his side again, and the thoughts cross his mind in a million permutations and a million understatements—things like _he’s not so bad, you’ve known him longer than anyone else,_ and _we’re just friends._ He dares not to speak it, or finish his sentences. He does not look for the appropriate phrases.

“It's never stopped you before,” Iwaizumi says instead, swallowing down something sharp. “You can tell me.”

Oikawa’s eyes lift into something wide, as if it's the last thing he could possibly do. “One day,” he just edges out, as if he's just decided. “I'll tell you one day.”

“Yeah?” 

Silence hits for a moment. The sun does not come back, and has resigned itself to set behind the clouds. Oikawa grins up at this, thin in the smile, and Iwaizumi pretends not to see right through him.

“The day it snows in August,” he says. “I'll tell you, then, okay?”

  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  


 

Iwaizumi sighs at the thought, _but still_. 

He goes to shake Oikawa’s hand in agreement, never one to call anything impossible.

  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  


 

By the winter, Oikawa finds himself a series of girlfriends, but they each last as long as snow in a mild winter. It always starts the same, their rise as swift as the downfall— 

One: Oikawa finds a confession in his desk, or his bag, or written on a volleyball. He gushes over the letters they write, all their whispers. _“That boy can control the weather, you know?”_ they say, like he's some ancient god; little do they know that Oikawa can hardly control _drizzle,_ much less typhoons (but it's not like poetry ever hurt anyone, so Iwaizumi thinks not to correct them).

Two: Oikawa and his newest paramour go out the next few days and Oikawa proclaims he is _hopelessly in love_ ; but it is not long when he realizes they are not some fated match after all. Iwaizumi watches it fall apart every time, the two of them stuck at a distance that was never quite closed to begin with. When they break up, neither in tears or remorse, that distance wider than ever, Iwaizumi pretends not to recount the times he's brushed Oikawa’s shoulder, or pulled his ear, or pressed their fists together for the bump.

So things go on, as they tend to do. The snow falls and melts, as fickle as a boy who's always hated winter. But through it all, Oikawa does admit candidly to the things he liked about people he's dated: the way one girl carried her _179.3cm,_ just a tad shorter than him; another with dark hair, neat and short and just slightly out of place; the last with her gruffness, her honesty. Like puzzle pieces, Iwaizumi wonders where Oikawa might ever find a girl to complete the picture, and deems it a useless exercise in guessing.

He sets himself down next to him on the park bench instead, the sunrise ahead of them, and decides not to concern himself with such things. Oikawa sighs, always antsy a day after the breakup, and comes back to Iwaizumi with the usual.

“I'm heartbroken,” he says again in the gravest dramatics, hand light over his chest, and Iwaizumi shakes his head, exasperated. Overhead, it begins to snow once more, light enough to stay right where they are.

“Well,” Iwaizumi says back, “maybe the next one won't be so bad.” 

Just so, Oikawa can only smile, a nod to cement things. He shifts the clouds into something heavier above, letting the sky hang low and full.

  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


 

 

“That's new,” Iwaizumi remarks, and Oikawa can only smile at a sky about to burst.

“I thought it was time for a proper winter.”

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It is later that night when Iwaizumi’s home and packing his bags, when his mother tells him about the newest weather forecast.

“We're getting the worst snow we've seen in fifty years,” she says. “Are you sure you still want to head to the gym?”

Iwaizumi nods, resilient as ever, and continues packing his duffel bag. 

“Did you know that everyone on the team calls us in-sync?”

He watches his mother give up that signature _Iwaizumi_ frown, as if to refute, “ _well, aren't you?_ ” 

“The thing is, I don't they think anyone realizes how much work it takes to be _in-sync_ ,” Iwaizumi explains. “So that's what he's doing. Making a snowstorm so we can get some work in, just the two of us today.” 

Iwaizumi’s mother sighs. Because she might've known all along, she goes ahead and hands her son the thermos she's been hiding behind her back. “Be careful then,” she says, “you and that unbelievable boy.”

 _Unbelievable._ Iwaizumi wonders about such superlatives for a moment, keeps it in his mouth without repeating it back to Oikawa.

  


 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


 

 

 

On the long walk back to the gym, snow beating down the rest of their town, they brave on anyway, past the drifting snow banks and the huddled households; in the gym, they shiver and practice jump serves until and their palms burn against the season. 

By the time they've finished with their tosses and their spikes, the prefecture’s recorded over fifty-four centimeters of snow, the most by any recent standard.

Oikawa basks in it, flopping down on the floor and laughing up at the ceiling. “I've really done it now, Iwa-chan,” he says. “How are we even going to get home?”

With a sigh, Iwaizumi just lays a jacket over Oikawa and joins him on the ground. Sweat cooled on his forehead for the worst cold later, a fever still in his cheeks, he thinks to forgive him this time anyway, too satisfied with their work to say much else. 

“Like we always do,” Iwaizumi just tells him. “No need to get worked up over a little snow.”

With Oikawa’s laughs an echo through the gym, all warm and balmy like summer, Iwaizumi just lets that word play on like the name of some secret, perfect track: _unbelievable,_ his mother had called it, and Iwaizumi thinks he might like the sound of this one, too.

  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


 

 

And yet, and still, it bears repeating. 

“Oikawa Tooru is not a god.”

This is something Iwaizumi tells the new first years privately that following spring, some of them startled, some of them guarded, some of them of unbothered either way; but he figures they all should hear it regardless, because it was better to avoid the pitfalls of anything _star struck_. Over steaming bowls of ramen, _a senpai’s treat,_ Iwaizumi fields their questions, comments, and concerns.

Kindaichi, in turn, asks about monsoons. Kunimi ponders if he'll make thunderstorms bad enough to cancel practice. Kyoutani, in all his indifference, beckons for more char-siu to top his bowl.

“I meant _volleyball-wise_ ,” Iwaizumi continues. “Fixate on that weather thing and you'll never be able to work with him. Just focus on the game, okay? He’s going to try to connect with every single one of you.”

Kindaichi puts down his chopsticks. “Iwaizumi-senpai,” he starts, “you sound like you know a lot about this.”

“You have to admit that the weather’s affected you at some point before, right?” Kunimi asks. “Has he ever made a storm too big for you to handle?” 

At this, Iwaizumi can only shrug. _Honest._ “No,” he says in a sort of tremor, more serious than he'd like. 

“So he’s not a god to you, then?”

“No.”

“Then?” Kindaichi asks, eyes wide. Infinitely curious.

“A brat.” 

“And what are you?” Kunimi can’t help but ask. “His handler?”

The three first years look on, all in varying degrees of interest. It is then when Iwaizumi realizes he's not sure how to answer, either. He thinks of the defaults again: best friend and brother of sorts. Not quite right. He looks for the others. In the midst of finicking with his leftover ramen, he works himself into a blur, thoughts full of the conversations heard at other tables and ones he might never get to have. He hears a girl utter something like _“beloved”_ and _“boy,”_ two things Iwaizumi never imagined he’d never put together, but he lets himself sink into it just the same.

He imagines Oikawa Tooru, all in various stages of duress and compromise. The high humidity, those nervous storms, the winds that cut and push them back down the road, one step forward, two steps back; how he might share an umbrella too small for the both of them, or a mitten in a blizzard, even if none of those things did a _damned thing_ and all they could do, maybe, was keep each other in such times. Because it wasn’t a matter of weathering. It was never about weathering.

Iwaizumi looks to Kindaichi, prepared to give him an answer. _“I’m the one that gets to walk in the storms,”_ he wants to say. He doesn’t, when one starts to pour outside, the familiar rattle of a rain that was not in the forecast.

“Oikawa,” he mouths instead, a scold uttered like a comfort, lost under the rain, the high exhaust fans, and the commotion of the room. Thunder comes knocking and a collective groan comes like a wave across the floor, the first years included. Iwaizumi just sips the last of his tea, meal unfinished. After paying the bill, they all part at the corner, waves and bows and _thank you’s_ included. Kunimi never gets his answer. Iwaizumi figures it was never meant for him, anyway.

Unbothered by the heavy rain, the cloudburst, Iwaizumi walks on past any bus stops and convenience store awnings for shelter. He makes it to the steps between their houses, looks up at the Oikawa residence and the glimpses of that familiar bedroom window; straight on towards that evening sun, a warmth he remembers by winter mornings, summer nights, he makes the call, the first number in his favorites, and tells him before any sort of hello.

“I don’t want to wait until it snows in August.”

Oikawa does not respond on the other end. All Iwaizumi gets is static and the clatter of more rain. He hears the faint struggle of a boy running back home, the one who dreams up downpours and forgets to put them out. Heavy breaths try to form some name— _Hajime—_ and footfalls follow back home, thudding against puddled concrete.

“Don’t.” Iwaizumi feels the gales build in his chest, pressed out in huffy pieces. “Don’t rush back here, you asshole. It can wait.”

“But Iwa-chan!” Oikawa says on the other end, out of breath. “I know you’ve said it a million times, not to make _rain_ out of season because it troubles people, but I couldn’t help it...I couldn't help it, and—” he stops suddenly, and then ends the call altogether.

Iwaizumi tries redialing, thinks of all the reasons Oikawa will keep for this newest storm: an achy ankle, a burnt tongue on tea, a particularly unpleasant dream.

Those footfalls pick up again. Those heavy breaths. _Hajime._ Iwaizumi doesn't make it to the second dial tone when he feels a hand over his, precarious against the wrist. Oikawa’s fingertips graze against Iwaizumi’s palm tentatively, a drizzle over uncharted lands, and he cannot help but remain.

They don't speak on the matter. There are no declarations, or any of his usual oratories. Iwaizumi curls his hand, safe against Oikawa’s, and stays to welcome whatever he’ll throw at him today.

  
  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


 

 

 

On the same night Miyagi declares a state of emergency over flash floods and record rains, two boys laugh in the face of it, hands linked, and talk about the promise of tomorrow.

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an afterglow that only the post-rain affords, cool at the back of the neck but vaguely warm by faint golden rays. It is an easy Monday when Iwaizumi comes to his senses at the sight of it, just a curious speck across Oikawa’s face, and he can't help but reach up from his lap to try to swat at it. It'd been raining all morning and afternoon, a storm out of place after a block of strong sun days, and the both of them had taken the chance to skip their university seminars and volleyball skirmishes and call it in for a much-needed break. 

“How long was I out for?” Iwaizumi asks, still drowsy. “Seems like I've been sleeping all afternoon.”

Casual against the arm of a shared couch, Oikawa shrugs, sleepy eyes out the window. “I didn't want to wake you,” he tells him. “So I let you sleep through the storm.” 

“What do you mean? What time is it?”

Oikawa sighs, and Iwaizumi remembers winds blowing at seventy-five kilometers per hour. “Don't you know?” he asks. “It's the morning, Iwa-chan.” He says this with a certain impatience, the sort Iwaizumi would know anywhere; he watches the way Oikawa’s cheeks redden in the high humidity, shard of sun still on his face. It is then when Iwaizumi remembers, by this small and severed beam, that they've always been made for new days. _Always, always, always._ Without further pretense, Iwaizumi reaches up once more, cheek to palm, and Oikawa leans into the touch, settled right into place.

“You know,” Iwaizumi remembers, more in musing than anything, “I dreamt you could control the weather.”

At this, Oikawa cannot help but laugh. He leans down for the kiss, no god, no sun, and grins brighter than daybreak.

  



End file.
